Jul. 2, 2013

Written by

Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

A former Child Protective Services employee from Birmingham is due in federal court Wednesday on child pornography charges, accused of ordering hundreds of child erotica films from an overseas moviemaker, including one that featured naked boys having food fights.

According to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court, William Shaffer, 71, a licensed social worker, spent nearly $7,000 over five years on roughly 222 videos he ordered from an international moviemaking company's website. An investigation into the production firm led authorities to Shaffer, who in 1987 was accused of molesting a boy between the ages of 8 and 9 when he was a CPS employee, the complaint said.

Investigators found a 1987 Westland police report containing that allegation when they searched Shaffer's home last November. Authorities contacted the alleged victim in March, who said he was molested by Shaffer but did not want to be interviewed, the complaint said.

Westland police could not confirm the existence of the 1987 police report because their computer records don't date back that far, and that a manual review of older records requires a Freedom of Information Act request, which could take a few days to process.

According to an affidavit filed Monday by a U.S. postal inspector, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and an unnamed foreign law enforcement agency started investigating a movie production company in 2010 that ran a website offering films of young boys marketed as “naturist films from around the world.” The company, identified only as “International Company,” was the subject of more than 20 complaints to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s Cyber TipLine regarding child pornography, the complaint said.

In October 2010, investigators accessed the company’s website and reviewed film previews, movie summaries and customer ordering information. Over the next six months, investigators purchased various videos, including one titled “Cutting Room Floor — Vlaviu,” with naked young boys having food fights in an apartment living room.

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The company, which had a shipping facility in North Tonawanda, N.Y., mailed the undercover officers’ movies to a post office box in Nolensville, Tenn. They were sent priority mail.

Foreign authorities also executed a search warrant on the company’s business premises and seized hundreds of DVD movies, photos, customer shipping labels and customer order histories, court documents state. Among the customers was Shaffer, the complaint said. He had the movies mailed to his Birmingham home.

Last November, authorities executed a search warrant at Shaffer’s home. After being read his rights, he admitted to ordering videos that contained images of naked boys, but said the company that made them stated the films were not illegal, the complaint said.

Shaffer said he ordered them online, but couldn't remember the website’s address, the complaint said. He also told agents that no images of child pornography would be found on his computer.

Investigators asked Shaffer where they could find the DVDs containing child pornography, and he asked for a lawyer, the complaint said.

Investigators found dozens of child porn videos under a kitchen table in Shaffer’s home, including 61 from the International Company, the complaint said. Investigators also found printed child pornography images and sexual stories about children, including one about a seventh-grade boy being molested and sodomized.

It is not clear whether Shaffer created the story, the complaint said. It is not yet known whether he has a private lawyer or a court-appointed one.